Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:LYV) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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And then, third would be the new builds where whatever level generally coming in and building out the shell and taking on that building would be the third bucket. And it’s going to move around year-to-year within those 3, but those would be the 3 large buckets. And then in terms of the priorities, absolutely, international, Latin America, Asia and more in Europe is highest priority for the Venue Nation strategy. In the U.S., you benefit from having a strong arena infrastructure because NBA, NHL, their teams and their affiliate teams provide you with some of that infrastructure that you don’t tend to have in the rest of the world. So this lets us both benefit from strongly attractive returns on those venues also, let’s just put on more shows for more fans, because we’re putting an infrastructure in place that didn’t previously exist.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Glagola with TD Cowen. Please proceed with your question.

Stephen Glagola: Joe, you’re on track for $300 million fee bearing tickets this year which is 7% growth over 22. IN the first half ticket growth on fee bearing is 22% year-over-year. So just maybe help us understand what’s the slowdown in the second half in ticketing or is that just some conservatism in the numbers. And then I have one more follow-up. Thanks.

Joe Berchtold: Yes. I think it’s just — you don’t yet know what Q4 looks like in terms of timing with on sales for shows next year. So I think we’re confident in the $300 million number at this point with the visibility we have. When we’re sitting here talking next. I think we’ll have better visibility into what Q4 is and we’ll guide from there.

Stephen Glagola: Okay. Thank you. And then similarly on the ticketing margin side, you came in north of 40% again in Q2. You’re reiterating high 30s in the back half — for the full year, excuse me, implies sort of like a mid-30% margin in the back half. But just similar to the revenue line, what’s going on there sequentially and the puts and takes. Thanks.

Joe Berchtold: Yes. I think is a long talk. There’s a lot of timing that happens with us in a given quarter. I think you saw last year a lot of the same questions. We had lower margins in the second half as we had a lot of costs associated with contract renewal cycles and other factors. So I think at this point, we’re comfortable continuing to reiterate the high 30s for the margin, but not yet ready to get more specific than that.

Stephen Glagola: Okay. And should we expect contract renewals again for Q3, similar to last year?

Joe Berchtold: I don’t think we’re looking to guide in a specific margin for a specific quarter as much as just give the overall year guidance.

Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Peter Supino with Wolfe Research. Please proceed with your question.

Peter Supino: Question on international with it growing so strongly, more major tourist — artists touring globally. Has your strategy changed at all? Does this fact invite you to spend more money perhaps on international M&A? Are there other things that you can do now with higher visibility to international demand that you might not have done in the past? And a second shorter question just is on technology. There’s all the controversy around bots and scalpers over the last year indicate that the company could productively spend materially more on technology and solve some of those problems? Thanks.

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